A TOTAL of 16,879 overseas absentee voters have cast their votes through postal, personal, and automated voting as of Wednesday morning.
The Commission on Elections (Comelec) said 6,832 voted through postal voting, 5,186 through personal voting, and 4,861 through the new automated system.
Only two Asian countries -- Hong Kong and Singapore -- are implementing elections overseas using the precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines.
The highest turnout was reported in Hong Kong where 4,111 registrants have already voted. Hong Kong was followed by Los Angeles, USA with 1,032.
However, not one registrant has voted in Guangzhou, China; Yangon, Myanmar; Osaka, Japan; Ankara, Turkey; Berne, Switzerland; The Hague, The Netherlands; Veinna, Australia; Warsaw, Poland; Brasilia, Brazil; Honolulu, USA; Ottawa, Canada; Baghdad, Iraq; and Washington, USA.
The total number of registered voters for the overseas absentee voting (OAV) is 589,830. Voting overseas started April 10 and will end on May 10 at 6 p.m.
Commissioner Armando Velasco said he is satisfied with the turnout of the overseas polls. The poll body expects a 70 percent turnout overseas.
"As of this date, we did not encounter any serious problems in the conduct of elections worldwide," Velasco noted.
This even as two PCOS machines failed to read ballots after it was kept overnight in cold storage rooms.
Smarmatic has already denied that the automated machines "broke down" since it was the election ballots that had moisture problem.
Indelible ink
Velasco also clarified that the special board of election inspectors (SBEIs) abroad used indelible ink after the overseas voters have cast their votes.
Since the procurement of indelible ink is not yet finished, the poll body resorted to old bottles of ink used in previous elections.
The Bids and Awards Committee has already awarded the contract to Texas Resources Corporation but has yet to buy the ink.
Ballots printed
In a related note, the National Printing Office (NPO) already printed more than 40 million election ballots after it ran on a 24-hour cycle.
"Yesterday, we did a 24-hour cycle; we were able to reach the one million mark. The ballots produced were 1,033,465," reported Comelec Commissioner Gregorio Larrazabal.
As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, 41,682,118 ballots have been printed.
The poll body targets to finish the printing of more than 50 million ballots by April 25. (Kathrina Alvarez/Sunnex)